


And Loyalty in Return (Stephanie Brown), PG

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-13
Updated: 2007-10-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia





	And Loyalty in Return (Stephanie Brown), PG

Stephanie Brown had a lot of mentors in the short time that she lived. Or, to be more accurate, Stephanie had a lot of people who might vaguely be called mentors in the short time she was alive. People who tried to mold her, cheated her, tricked her, used her, and betrayed her trust and demanded her loyalty in return. As far as Stephanie knew, _that’s_ what a mentor did.

A lot of those so-called mentors were very smart people too. Oracle and Batman were probably two of the smartest people on the planet, Stephanie figured, but neither of them had treated her much differently than the man who had originally inspired Stephanie to put on the Spoiler costume in the first place. Oracle stopped caring somewhere along the way, and Batman … Batman had used her to the point that as Stephanie lay dying, her last thoughts were spent wondering whether or not she’d even matter enough to be thought of as "just another dead Robin" to him.

There were other people in Stephanie's life, of course, who weren't mentors. People like Tim, and the brief acquaintance who had fathered her daughter. Both left unquestionably large influences on her life, but dear as Tim had been, his mark had been as bitter as it had been sweet.

Retold in such shortened form, it was easy to disregard Stephanie's story as one full of misfortune, or if less sympathetically inclined, teenage melodrama cut short. 

But among all those she had known, Stephanie had _also_ known Cass.

Stephanie's fondest memories of her life were shared on a hidden rooftop with Cass, far from the prying, judgmental eyes of the other members of both Stephanie's adopted family and her biological one.  On those rooftops, Stephanie and Cass had shared the kind of things all good friends do, from crushes to disappointments to hopes for the future. It was where Cass taught Steph how to fight better, and where Steph started to teach Cass sign language.  
  
Their private rooftop was where Steph had learned from Cass how to just _relax_ no matter what the state of Stephanie's home life might have been. It had seemed so simple, coming from Cass - if someone whose father had raised her to kill and whose mother had abandoned her could find joy enough to laugh in simple, silly things, what was so dreadful about Stephanie's life that she couldn't do the same?

When Stephanie was given her second chance at life, the first person she looked up was her old friend Cass. Seeing what had happened to Cass since Steph had died hurt Stephanie.  But she was determined to repay the wisdom Cass had once bestowed by reminding Cass exactly who she was, no matter how long it took.  
  
Because that's what a friend was for.  
  
Cass had taught Stephanie that much.  
  



End file.
